Washed Away
by apollosspear
Summary: Taking place before "Never Forgotten," Lee is dealing with being all alone on Earth. inspired by prompts found here http://community./bsg pornbattle/


_**Hi again!! So okay, I was checking out the prompt submissions for the Always Awesome BSG Porn Battle #3 (found here **__**.com/bsg_pornbattle/**__**) and I saw these prompts for Lee by himself "Lee/ loneliness, standing in the mud" and I just had to write for those. Unfortunately I couldn't write THAT type of story for Lee, and a case of winter blues combined with continued bitterness over how the show ended produced this. (I still hate you RDM.)**_

_**This is what happened before the events of "Never Forgotten." Special thanks to my awesome beta Smcki10, she is badass!! (p.s. I really like to hear what you thing so please review!!!)**_

Rain. Thirty of the two hundred and fifty days since he abandoned the remnant of the human and cylon survivors of the fleet have been filled with rain. Standing in the mud, Lee Adama felt that the endless days of torrential downpours fit his reality just perfectly.

A father that was never truly there for him, had abandoned him again, another mother figure that he could never truly please dying again. A career that he never really wanted, now a thing of the past. But worst of all, Kara was gone forever.

He had put on a face for the one last day that he had spent with people. Especially for Helo and his family when he told them that Kara had gone. That was all that he said, that she had gone. He didn't need Helo's pitying face or Athena's hesitant condolences. So he had put on the face of the CAG, of the Commander, unflappable, unfeeling, cold.

Lee Adama was used to that. He was used to being alone, lonely, only depending on himself and the strengths that he had been guilted and shamed into learning; self-reliance, sturdiness, coldness, control. His father had once told him that sometimes you had to loose control in order to win. The hypocrisy was that it was his father who punished and shamed him when Lee _did_ loose control. Which set of advice should he have listened too?

After twenty some years of _control, _how could he suddenly let it go out of the blue? He learned consequences of control later that morning. Then he learned the consequences of loosing control a year and a half later. So once again Lee was alone because control was a way of life, a way to survive.

Lee took a deep breath as the rain poured over his bowed head, running down is back, thick rivulets of water falling off his cheeks and brow. His long hair was plastered to the side of his now bearded face, the hair providing a modicum of warmth.

"_Bright shiny futures aren't for people like us Lee."_ Kara's voice startled him and he quickly turned around, looking for her beautiful face. That was starting to happen more and more these last few weeks. He would hear something that Kara had said and he would look around to find nothing there but emptiness. Sometimes though, sometimes he could feel her arms wrap around him from behind, like she was hugging him, her chin resting on his shoulder.

It would happen when he least expected it. Like the time he had climbed a low rise that ended with a breathtaking view of a lush savanna full of life. Herds of animals thousands strong migrating along routes thousands of years old, ingrained in the animals DNA. He felt her then, and he momentarily jumped from the shock. When he didn't see anything and the feeling continued, he reveled in it as he stood and watched life flow, knowing that Kara was somehow still by his side.

When the feeling left he had never felt more alone. When it didn't return after three days Lee wondered if that was their final goodbye. But it happened again weeks later when he came across a glorious waterfall. He decided to stop there and rest for a few days, the feeling of Kara staying with him the entire time.

Then, like before it was gone, and Lee started on his trek once again. That had been months ago and the feeling never returned. Instead, he would hear snippets of things she had said to him over the years. Each time shocking him into thinking she had come back to him. That she had snubbed her nose at the gods and decided that he, finally, was the one that she wanted to spend eternity with.

"_Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama."_ Just when he thought he could not feel anymore pain, and at the same time the boundless joy of the night she had screamed those words to the sky, Lee closed his eyes and pulled into himself even more. He was utterly alone, possibly losing his mind, and overwhelmed with sorrow and loneliness. This was not the salvation he expected finding Earth was supposed to provide.

"_**Take **__a breath Lee, it feels good to be alive, doesn't it?" _Lee felt her hand again. It was over his heart, like the time she laughed during those endless jumps every 33 minutes, when he asked if he needed to smack her in the mouth. He placed his hand over where hers would have been if it had been real, and with his eyes still tightly shut he finally answered her voice for the first time, "Not without you here, with me."

"_I'm a screw up Lee, remember that."_

"You **never** where," he replied with a slight hitch in his voice. He felt her other hand cup his cheek and heard her say, _"It's ok Lee."_

"It will never be okay," he replied.

He thought he heard an exasperated sigh and then he admitted something that had been eating at him since he saw her fly into the mandalla, "I should have left Dee when you asked me to. I should have never married her at all."

"_We had separate journeys Lee,"_ he heard Kara reply. He closed his eyes and swallowed. The rain was washing away all the lies and exposing the truth.

"No Kara, we had fear stopping us. My journey should have always been with you, on yours," he said.

Then he felt her again. He felt her hugging him like the time that he had been packing to transfer to the Pegasus, after she had shot him, after he had failed to back her up and he had almost allowed himself to die.

"_Are we okay?"_ The same question as before, the layers of which the same, "are you okay? Are you mad at me? Do you forgive me? I am sorry." Lee closed his eyes again, the rain washing away the new track of tears, "Yeah."

He felt her holding on, not letting go, and he pulled in a ragged breath. "I don't know what to do any more," he admitted in a whisper.

"_We keep fighting 'til we can't," _she replied in her typical fashion. Never giving up, always fighting, thumbing her nose at danger and despair. Then he felt something other than her. The rain slowed and stopped in a matter of seconds.

Lee opened his eyes and looked up as the sun's warm rays split the clouds and shined on him like a spotlight cutting through the darkness. He thought for a split second that he saw Kara, arms wrapped around his neck, in that amazing blue dress that she wore on Colonial Day, smiling up at him. Then he thought he heard her say, _"We'll see each other again Lee, its destiny."_

Suddenly he felt as if he was rejuvenated, his energy returned to him in full. He didn't feel happy, or any less alone, but he felt…. Free. He looked out over the drying earth, and still feeling the touch of Kara, he shook off the excess rain from his hair and started on his journey again. He wanted to see the vast blue ocean on the other side of the mountains in the distance.


End file.
